A disagreement between members of the DeWitt County Board and the Zoning Administrator resulted in a special meeting of the Board's Land Use Committee Thursday night to decide what will be the next step for Tradewind Energy's latest application for their Alta Farms II wind project in northwest DeWitt County. 

Chairman of the Committee, Terry Ferguson indicates they approved bypassing the concerns of Zoning Administrator Angie Sarver and sending the application on to the Regional Planning Commission.

The Land Use Committee heard from both sides on the issue. According to Ferguson, the Tradewind folks indicated there is no specification the zoning administrator can prevent an ordinance from going forward due to deficiencies in an application.

Andrea Rhoades with Residents Against Wind Farms in DeWitt County spoke against passing the ordinance on the RPC without the application being complete. Ferguson says her message was we cannot pick and choose which parts of the ordinance we're going to follow.

Ferguson feels this could set a bad precedent for future special use permit applications. The application will be reviewed by the RPC later this fall.